Andreas Vesalius, the Reformer of Anatomy

by James Moores Ball

It was owing to the unselfish labors of such men as Petrarch and Boccaccio that the works of Livy, Cicero, Quintilian, Terence, and others of the ancient authors, were preserved. In this enterprise they were encouraged by the rulers. Thus Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence, Alfonso the Magnanimous in Naples, and Nicholas V. in Rome, to say nothing of the despots of the smaller cities, rivaled one another in their zeal in unearthing and multiplying the manuscripts of the ancient writers. They spared neither time nor money to increase their store of manuscript books. They surrounded themselves with learned men who lived in high esteem, and who were supported by salaries paid by the State or by private pensions.

The fifteenth century, which was one of the most remarkable epochs in history, was rich in accomplishment. Almost all of the great events which have influenced European commercial and intellectual development can be traced to that period. The invention of printing, the discovery of America, the fall of the Roman Empire in the East, the birth of the Reformation, and the rise of art in Italy, all belong to this wonderful century. In this period, when almost every city in Italy was a new Athens, the Italian poets, historians, and artists vied with the eminent men of the ancient world in carrying the lamp of learning. The Italian cities—Florence, Bologna, Milan, Venice, Rome and Ferrara—fought with one another, not for the spoils of the battlefield but for the victories of science and of art; not so much for the profits of commerce as for the wealth of genius and of learning. The intellectual development which occurred in northern Italy under the rule of the house of Medici, and particularly under the auspices of Lorenzo the Magnificent, forms one of the most interesting periods in European history.

It is impossible in the present work to trace the steps by which the exquisite taste of the ancients in works of art was revived in modern times. Nevertheless, a few words may be devoted to this subject. While much must be credited to those Greek artists who had left their country and had settled in the Italian peninsula, it must be conceded that many of the works of art of the native Italians were not the less meritorious. The same circumstances which favored the revival of letters, operated to further the cause of art; and the same individuals, who were interested in the preservation of the manuscripts of the older authors, also busied themselves with the collection of ancient statues, paintings, gems and tapestry. The freedom of the Italian Republics permitted the minds of men to expand to full fruition; and the encouragement which was given by its rulers to artists, sculptors and artisans, made the city of Florence, in the fifteenth century, a not less renowned centre of culture than Athens had been in ancient times.

The revival of art dates from the time of Cimabue (1240-1300) and Giotto (1276-1336). The former is known as the Father of Modern Painters; the latter constructed the Campanile at Florence. To Giovanni Cimabue, scion of a noble Florentine family, is usually given the credit of being the restorer of art in Italy. He is thought to have been the first painter to throw expression into the human countenance. His work, if judged by present standards, would be called crude, rude and incomplete. Much of the fame of this painter is to be attributed to his being the first person whom Vasari chronicled in his Lives of the Painters. For more than a century after the time of Cimabue and Giotto, painters displayed only a smattering of anatomical knowledge.

Early in the fifteenth century two Flemish artists, Hubert van Eyck (1365-1426) and his brother John (1385-1441), in their polyptych of the Adoration of the Lamb, boldly struck out along new lines and committed the unheard-of deed of painting nude figures. Italy, however, was the real birthplace of Art-Anatomy. While the Flemings and others of the North painted everything that they saw, including the nude, the Italians were the first men of the Renaissance who thought of painting the nude figure before draping it. Leo Battista Alberti (1404-1472), in his works on painting, insists that the bony skeleton must first be drawn and then clothed with its muscles and flesh. This was an important step in advance, since it shows that the Florentine artists were progressing towards realism and were breaking away from the symbolism of the early Christian painters and mosaic-workers. The new movement in art found a worthy champion in Antonio Pollaiuolo (1432-1498). In his knowledge of the anatomy of the human figure he surpassed all of the artists of his day; and as a result of his labors he may justly be named the founder of the scientific study of the nude. His knowledge of anatomy was so accurate, and so extensive, that it could have been gained only in the dissecting room.

Under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the guiding mind of Pollaiuolo, there occurred a revival of pseudo-paganism in Art. The old Church subjects were largely neglected; mythological subjects again became the fashion; draperies were either modified or were laid aside; and the scientific study of anatomy, both as regards the nude figure and the dissection of the individual parts, became the necessary training of the student. Of all the masters of this period, the palm for excellence in drawing the naked figure must be awarded to Luca Signorelli (1442-1524), from whose work Michael Angelo is known to have profited.

The alliance between skilled anatomists and master artists was of reciprocal benefit. The anatomical studies which were made conjointly by Leonardo da Vinci and the celebrated teacher of anatomy, Marc Antonio della Torre, were lost to the world by the untimely death of the latter, before he had finished a magnificent treatise on human anatomy. Leonardo’s anatomical sketches, if they had been published during his lifetime, would have revolutionized anatomy both as regards discoveries in the body and the teaching of the structure of man. These masterpieces of anatomical illustration long remained hidden from the world; they were published only in the year 1902. Even now their cost is so great that only a few wealthy libraries can possess them. Leonardo’s long unpublished drawings show him to have been a most accurate anatomist. At the same time, he constantly kept in view the aim of fine art, which, in so far as practical anatomy is concerned, needs a knowledge of only the bones and the muscles.

Nor was Leonardo the only artist who made dissections. Raffaello Santi, Michael Angelo, Bartholomaus Torre, Luigi Cardi or Civoli, Jan Stephan van Calcar, Giuseppe Ribera, Arnold Myntens, and Pietro da Cortona studied practical anatomy. Rubens’s long-lost sketch-book[1], which was published one hundred and thirty-three years after his death, shows with what care he had studied human anatomy. Albrecht Dürer’s Treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body is also worthy of mention.

In the number and fame of her Universities, Italy showed supremacy. At the end of the fifteenth century she could boast of sixteen seats of learning, a number equal to that of the combined institutions of Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia and Bavaria.

This digression has led us away from the Humanists. Their list is a long one. Among them were Poggio Bracciolini, who discovered the manuscript of the Institutions of Quintilian and the writings of Vitruvius; Poliziano, the first poet of the fifteenth century, and the translator of the works of Hippocrates and Galen; Pontanus, whose De Stellis and Urania were much admired by Italian scholars; Sannazzaro, whose epic on the birth of Christ cost him twenty years of labor; Vida, whose Christiad and other poems were much admired; and Fracastoro, whose Syphilis was hailed as a divine poem.